Was proactively offerred by ground agent (and accepted) changing CDG-YUL-(6 hour layover)-YYZ to a direct flight CDG-YYZ departing 1 hour earlier on a long business class (lowest) AP redemption, effectively getting home like 7 hours earlier. No SDC fee / fare difference, immediately confirmed seat on the earlier routing. No stated reason why this was offerred or possible, the revised long-haul has a much longer standby list while both long-hauls were full in Y and half-empty in J, I'm assuming there's a weather advisory somewhere along the way granting free changes but a nice reminder that there can be free last minute changes that are actually to the pax's advantage once in a blue (or snowy) moon. And AC staff can still surprise and delight going above and beyond.

The original routing (AC I inventory) was a fraction of the cost of the dynamically-priced revised routing and my partner is relieved after all the circuitous routing I made them go through (due to award partner inventory limitations / peak travel season demand / their passport and resistance to get a visa to avoid the million TWOV layovers...), so a win for all.